atif089

Over the past five months, I have taken four trips with Lufthansa, encompassing a total of 16 flights. During these flights, there was only one instance where I was seated next to a white person (I'm brown myself). On all other flights, my seatmates were either brown or black individuals, similar to my ethnic background. I observed this pattern all over the board (people segmented by color).

The most notable experience occurred on my last trip. At the gate, there was a last-minute reshuffling of the seating plan, and new seat assignments were distributed on small paper slips/tokens. Once I boarded the plane, I observed that the all of passengers were white, except for three individuals, including myself, who were black or brown. Intriguingly, we were all seated next to each other.

210+ people, 3 people of color, seated next to each other. Could this be a mere coincidence? 15 times?

denhaagflyer

There are several problems with your theory, herewith just a few: first, LH does not collect information about ethnicity (afaik); while you could assign seats to people according to nationality, the correlation between ethnicity and nationality has decreased quite a lot over the years. Second, even if they could do this, why would they do so? LH (and other airlines) are in the business of profit maximisation. Third, even if they did so, why would it be racist to seat people of same nationality/ethnicity together?

atif089

It can't be based on nationality because I have the same nationality as your username. And there were a couple of times I was seated next to people who were US or Canadian nationals.

Hmmm.. just a mere coincidence then? Or grouped by specific last names 👀..

Grouping by nationality is fine and also makes a bit of sense to me (the possibility of having a neighbor speaking the same language) but grouping by ethnicity would constitute racial segregation IMHO.

sw1x

There is a plethora of things of which one can legitimately accuse LH, e.g.

- constant devaluation of its soft product,
- a laughably time consuming update of its uncompetitive J product,
- de-facto-monopolistic pricing,
- outsourcing of ground services to incapable low cost operators,
- bad food in short-haul J,
- no food and drinks at all, except plastic-bottled water, in domestic Y,
- inconsistent products between a multitude of airline labels solely created to rip off staff and customers,
- management that doesn’t have much to show after 10 years, but will still accept a pay rise for laying off thousands of employees
and so forth,

BUT: LH supposedly being intrinsically racist, is absurd not only for the reasons stated by denhaagflyer above, but also in light of LH‘s very diverse work force.

Despite all of its shortcomings LH is one of Europe‘s leading airlines connecting Europe to the world. It cannot afford being racist even if it wanted to (however absurd that notion may be).

atif089

I find their pricing structure is very strong (~40% cheaper than KLM) on my route. I chose them over KLM, Saudia, and Emirates and chose to let go of all other hassles (like constantly being racially profiled at Frankfurt, not Lufthansa's fault here) just because of the strong pricing difference.

supine

You have to be living in DACH to get the de-facto-monopolistic pricing,

supine

No.

​​​​​​​Anyone familiar with LH IT would find it laughable that it could have the sophistication to do things like you accuse it of.

atif089

Oh ...., you're right. I just cross-checked and my trip from AMS with a layover at FRA is 50% cheaper than the direct flight from FRA to the same destination.

Deckter

Maybe it's time to pony up for the seat selection and decide where you want to sit in the cabin. That's one way to beat the system

Duck1981

Instead of posting wild theories I would strongly recommend to pay for seat selection.

If you believe that German Federal Police 'racially profiles' you then I would recommend to undertake a trip to the US and see how CBP handles the situation.

On a positive note, you haven't asked for compensation.

Repooc17

Yikes. IB4TL>

The demand for racism has always been much much higher than supply of actual racism.

oliver2002

Over the past five months, I have taken a number trips with Lufthansa, encompassing a total of 17 flights. During these flights, there was only one instance where I was seated next to a brown person (I'm brown myself, half Indian with an Indian last name). This was on a flight to India, and only because the ladys seat was broken and she was reseated just before takeoff. 🧐

sodaisei

I am white and this is the reason I fly LH.

the810

While Germans, sadly, are inherently racist and I'm sure this to some extent applies to Lufthansa, your theory is definitely wrong for a simple reason that Lufthansa has absolutely no way to know your race. At least if you do OLCI, which most people do. For most flights Lufthansa won't even know your nationality, although this won't apply if you primarily fly on routes where API is required.

Duck1981

I am German and I am definitely not racist.